The Wife Meets The Woz

April met The Woz last night. How cool is that?!


April showing Steve a poster of himself, his son, and some PowerBooks.


Kerychuk and Wozniak. Gurus of technology and education!


Evening at the Qwest Center in Omaha, Nebraska.

April and one of her work associates attended an AIM Institute banquet in Omaha where Steve was the keynote speaker. After the speech, Wozniak hung around to pose for photos and graciously sign Macs, Apple II's and other historic Apple and Woz-related items. She said he was not only an entertaining speaker, but also listened attentively to guests and welcomed their own stories.

Steve Wozniak: a class act all the way.

Update: My wife has posted her recollection of the event in the comments section, while another Woz fan shares his experience at Applemacpunk.com

Pirate Radio in Miami

I finished watching Miami Vice Season 2 on DVD (one of my all-time favorite shows) a few days ago and was reminded of the episode "Trust Fund Pirates" by this CNN story.

Fans of Vice will recall Richard Belzer's (Law & Order) character was a pirate radio station operator who conducted his illegal broadcasts from out in the ocean near Miami.

Watch this space.

Hello all.

Between working on a film set and catching strep throat and a flu, helping out family and friends with work and projects, and trying to get other stuff finished, I haven't posted much on my personal blog here in about a month. We've also got a huge dump of snow in the last few weeks here in Alberta (not to mention most of Canada) and it generally slows one down.

So while we thought we were nearly done with winter (mild as it may have been), we knew better. Right now with all the snow, it looks as if we've been in winter for months on end when it's really near springtime. Oh well, at least the ski resorts and farmers should be happy about it!

As I've mentioned though, I'm working on the Mark Schultz interview and some other fun posts to make up for the lack of posting. I think you'll enjoy them.

Note: If any of you DDM blog readers have actually ordered anything through my Amazon links (not just clicked on them or performed searches), please drop me a line and let me know. I think I'm having some difficulties with the tracking reports generated by Amazon.

Thanks!

New Posts Coming Soon

Yeah, I'm still here folks. Got some new posts coming soon, including interviews, beginning with author/illustrator and Xenozoic Tales/Cadillacs and Dinosaurs creator, Mark Schultz.

Stay friendly.

Holidays with Jedi

My wife and I spent Christmas being entertained by Ewan McGregor. Sort of.


Photo © Chad Kerychuk.

Within days we watched:

Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith,

The Island,

Robots, and

on Christmas Day, we watched a few episodes of Long Way Round; a fascinating reality series about McGregor's adventure with his friend, Charley Boorman, as they travel around the world from London to New York on motorcycles.

The McGregor film fest wasn't planned but we noticed the pattern later. 2005. Year of the McGregor.

Nifty new Yoda Christmas stocking that is, hmmm. Wife to thank I have.

26 Tons of Fun

I've been helping a friend of a friend who owns a local truck detailing business. Mostly the job entails washing and detailing tractor trailer units, but it also includes washing construction equipment. Thursday afternoon, Chris (the owner) offered me a chance to drive one of these to get washed:





A John Deere 950c Crawler Bulldozer. PDF file with specs and more photos can be found here.

It's actually easier to control than I had previously thought (though this one looks pretty intimidating) since the 2 main controls (speed/direction and blade) are joystick-style devices. Much like you'd find in a jetfighter cockpit or arcade game. Though I've been around them before when I worked for a construction firm, I didn't operate any. For the washing/detailing job, we had to move it into the wash bay at the equipment firm. While I didn't plough any dirt, and there wasn't much clearance between the blade and the bay walls, it sure was fun!

Unfortunately, it didn't transform into a giant robot.
Photos from here.

HD Seminar Follow-up

This weekend, I was fortunate to attend the HD Production Conference here in Edmonton. I understand nearly 300 attended the 2-day conference in Calgary and around 200 packed the sessions in Edmonton. It was great to see a lot of familiar faces, meet some new ones, and learn about all the new HD productions from Albertans. And the two fantastic lunches were a bonus!

It was a little daunting to see some of the financial figures people were dealing with but since HD is a relatively new media, a higher production cost can be expected. The quality available through HD is outstanding and for those productions that want that clarity, detail, rich colors, and an immersive experience, HD is definitely the way to go.

Hopefully I will also have a production to add to the growing list.

Read more at my posting on The Alberta Movie Guide.